Chart of the approach to Point Turton, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, showing soundings.

A jetty at Point Turton was petitioned for as early as 1874, and when completed in October 1877 was just over 90 metres long. It was needed for the export of the locally grown grain, as well as the convenient shipping of goods for Warooka. The jetty was subsequently extended to 103.5 metres long in 1882. Limestone mined nearby was exported from 1889. In 1903 Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd acquired the rights to the quarry, lengthened the jetty and built houses for its workers. When the limestone quarries were closed in 1917 Point Turton was still an active port for the adjacent interior and ketches carried grain to Port Victoria for loading to large off-shore ships for many more years, until bulk handling facilties for grain were established on the Peninsula from the late 1950s.

Ketches - small sailing craft - were the mainstay of shipping to the small port and others like it along South Australia's coast. In 1877 however it was decided that something quicker and bigger would be needed; seizing the opportunity the Adelaide Steamtug Company placed their steamer Glenelg on the route to western Yorke Peninsula including Point Turton. Glenelg could carry 120 tons of cargo as well as 22 passengers.

Navigation charts such as this one allowed ships' captains to approach the small ports with some confidence of not running aground.

Collins, Neville C The jetties of South Australia: past and present Woodside, S.A.: Neville Collins, 2005

Warooka Historical Committee West of the Peesey: an account of a community : Warooka, Corny Point, Stenhouse Bay Warooka, S. Aust. : Warooka Historical Committee, 1976

Carmichael, Ern, The ill-shaped leg: a story of the development of Yorke Peninsula [Fullarton, S. Aust.]: E.J. Carmichael, 1973

Southern Yorke's Peninsula [By our Special reporter], South Australian chronicle and weekly mail, 8 December 1877, p. 4

Opening of steam communication with Point Turton, Minlacowie, and Port Victoria, South Australian chronicle and weekly mail, 8 December 1877, p. 10c